How to secure rank 1 in Civil Services Exam

Civil Services is a dream job! Every year lakhs of aspirants apply for the premium career choice, but only a handful get through the extensive tri-staged examination. And these selected bunch of deserving candidates are then further grilled for the respective Civil Administrative Services. But to secure the desired position in the reputed Civil Services is not an easy shell to crack and especially when you have aimed to bag the top ranks!

Being an IAS Academy, we, at Chanakya IAS Academy, everyday face numerous queries of students, and one of the most asked queries which we generally get from our aspirants is ‘How to secure top ranks in or rank 1 in Civil Services Examination’. Now, if ‘how to secure top ranks in the Civil services exam’ is your concern too, we can aid you well! In this article, our experts have compiled for you simple motivational excerpts from the life of Civil Services Toppers (extracted from various online resources and from our own past students’ experiences who are today serving as Civil Services Officers), which can help you set your targets well and achieve success in Civil Services Examination.  However, your ultimate mission should always remain to serve the country, and rank must only matter to secure the desired position in the reputed Civil Services.

These are the people, who have taken the tough journey to the desired goals of serving the society and now is your turn to put yourself in their shoes. One single step it is!

1. IRS after Google and now an IAS, Anudeep Durishetty chose to steal time from a busy working life – It is rightly said that any dream can true if we have the courage to pursue them. An engineer from BITS Pilani, product quality analyst with Google (Hyderabad), IRS in his previous attempt and now an IAS in his 5^th, Anudeep Durishetty is one name, every IAS Aspirant must take an inspiration from. He knew his goals clear and worked day & night to pursue them, with the best of his capacities.

Initially, when he had dreamt of becoming a Civil Servant, he had no idea of how life is going to treat him. But that was when he had decided to tell life, how he wanted to be treated. He did not wait for the right time and rather made every moment the right time. From the very first attempt, he made sure that time was one thing that he will control for his Civil Services preparation. Despite working in the Multinational giant like Google, Anudeep secured an IRS and now the IAS.

Leaning for you: Time Management was the key to unlock doors of infinite success for Anudeep Durishetty! Willing to try? Time Management plays a vital role in your success when it comes to managing your time well for the preparation. You must set a timetable for you, and strictly follow it for at least a year with sheer dedication to reach your desired goal

2. Nandini made sure she learnt from her mistakes – Life at the village Kembodi in Kolar district of Karnataka were the formative years of Nandini KR’s inclination towards Civil Services as a career choice. While serving the local remote villages as a volunteer from a very tender age, as she admits, were the days when she understood the potential of district administration in solving grass root level challenges. Her first attempt was a lesson and second a reality check for Nandini KR to realise what exactly does it takes to be a Civil Administrator. She took her lessons well and practised more post third attempt with Civil Services Examination! Prevailing myths that said ‘one must know everything under the sun’ was not that she could see helping, and rather it was a simple loophole in effective writing skills that acted like a blockade to her childhood dreams.

She rose to the choice of writing full-length test papers as many as she could to practice answer writing practice and also learn to complete the paper in given time constraints. She once said that ‘failure was my first attempt at learning’ and the result was an All India Rank 1 in Civil Services Examination 2016.

Learning for you: So, another important factor which makes your touch the heights of success in Civil Services Exam is the connection, and passion that you must feel for this coveted examination. Apart from the burning desire, the strong connection and passion ,you must be strong enough to not hear what anyone else says to you, rather you wisely chose the right guide for you, who can bust all your myths so that you tread on this beaten path with full confidence on yourself and will to work hard for this examination.

Looking for a right guide and right program for you to kick-start your preparation in the right direction under experts guidance? Click Here

Besides, what important is to understand that you don’t need to hear anyone and study everything under the sun, rather you must get a sound idea about what exactly UPSC looks for, and align your preparation in those lines only. So in Nandini’s case, she was lacking at expressing her knowledge to the fullest, which is way too important for UPSC to judge in the candidate. So you must have only the required knowledge as per the syllabus, which can be gained with NCERTS and standard books, and you must know how to present that knowledge effectively while connecting it with the current affairs knowledge.

Talking about busting the myths, we have another hero, who busted the biggest myth that UPSC is biased towards Hindi Medium aspirants.

3. The differently-abled Ira Singhal knew she is ‘able’ enough to win over her dreams – How often do we consider situations like family issues, financial constraints and/ or work life balancing under the pressure of which we completely skip to look back at the dreams we had seen for our ‘SELF’? Humans have a common tendency to use all the possible reasons to curtain our inefficiency to comply with the needful efforts in achieving our dreams. But amongst so many of negligent ‘us’, there is a girl who takes no barricades! Scoliosis is a disability for many, but for Ira Singhal, nothing comes from the opportunities she seeks for her life, not even a disability. Every single IAS/IPS aspirant must have watched her Interview or read the story of the dedication that she put to crack the desired Civil Services Exam and her fight all along the journey. Not talking of how she did so, for, that you can read all over the internet, what is important here is to understand that she chose to pursue her dream, without considering any single constraint as a roadblock. If you really want to understand what challenges are, do a little research about the medical condition entailing a deviation of the spine and you will know, how well Ira is doing in her life, already! And that too with a SMILE 😊

The result is in front of you! Today she is one of the most prized Administrative Officers our Nation is blessed with.

Remember, myths are only a curtain put over real efforts! It is totally your choice if you want to stand beside a curtain or move it aside and enjoy the real beauty of life.

#Tip – Compliment your goal with a sincere plan and abide by it. Knowledge is the real wealth in case of Civil Services examination and learning the art of effective expression through answers along with regular practice with Mock Tests & previous year papers can easily help you ace the league.

These were just a few examples out of the entire lot that our Civil Services Fraternity comprises of. Go ahead and read stories of Ira Singhal – the differently abled lady who topped Civil Services Exam, Ajay Arora – the visually impaired Civil Administrator, who never lost the sight of his goal, Govind Jaiswal – Indian Administrative Officer who fought all the odds in life to reach his goal, just because he wanted to! They prepared because they wanted to, they channelized their efforts in the right direction and dedicated their soul towards serving the society, simply because they believed in winning the challenge over. The list of such unsung heroes is endless, and you will have to decide whom do you want to take inspirations from!

Securing top ranks need sheer trust and dedication in your own efforts! Nothing else can parallel hard-work!

Securing a top rank is now in your hands!